We Are Coming Soon

Who: This is open to all aged 11-18.
Where: The Sir John Lowther Scout Centre, Kettering, Northamptonshire
When: 12th to 14th April 2024
Overnighters, arrive from 5 p.m. Friday 12th April for a welcome and buffet dinner at 6 p.m., pick up 5 p.m. Sunday.
Those with Daytime tickets are asked to arrive by 9.15 a.m. for a 9.30 a.m. start, but you are welcome to join us for breakfast which is 8.30 a.m. each day. You can join us on Friday evening, or just for Saturday and Sunday. Please be picked up by 9 p.m. latest each evening – you can stay for dinner and the evening activities, or head off before dinner if you think someone else’s cooking will be better than ours.

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You’ll probably find you want to stay for the meals as they’re sociable and the food is good.

How much:
£275 for full residential tickets
£249 for earlybird tickets 
£160 for day tickets (all activities and meals, but staying elsewhere with family)

In all cases, a £50 deposit secures your place

Where you’ll be sleeping:
You’ll be sleeping in rooms that have between 2 and 8 beds with those of the same gender and roughly same age. Non-binary people let us know what you’re comfortable with. The venue provides bedding EXCEPT PILLOWS. If you know someone else who is coming and you’d particularly like to share a room with them, let us know and we’ll do our best to make the jigsaw work.

What we’re doing:
These are mostly half-day courses, morning or afternoon, so you'll usually get to do four of them. In the evenings we’ll be doing other stuff either together or with choices you can make on the day. 

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Here's the full list of courses. We'll ask you to rank your choices so we can wrangle the schedule to give everyone as many of their top picks as we can.

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Ancient Games

Tom's back with more new but old games and sports - this time from the Ancient world. We'll have lots on the menu: from the first games to grace Ancient Greek playgrounds, such as ephedrismos and ostrakinda, to early challenges that turned into full blown sports, like Kabaddi, from India. All you need is some energy, a willingness to spend it, and the wisdom of knowing when, and when not, to use your debating skills with the ref.

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The Opposite of Statues

We normally think of sculptures as shapes frozen in stone - the game "statues" involves being as still as possible. But kinetic sculptures are anything but immobile. Formed of moving parts that change shape in response to the wind or human interaction, they are a fusion of science and engineering, always changing and showing a new face to the viewer. You might create your own sculpture to take home, or collaborate on an interactive art installation for other Weekenders to enjoy. See what you can bring to life with human-made and natural materials, an artistic eye and a splash of physics!

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Guerilla Filmmaking

Did you know most of us are walking around with whole film studios in our pockets? In this session we’ll use our own smartphones or tablets or video cameras (if you don’t have one, don’t worry, you’ll join a crew that does!) to make some no-budget short films on the fly. Using the technique of in-camera editing, you’ll plan and shoot each shot of your short film in sequence from start to finish, so when you’re done filming, it’s already edited together! You'll learn tips and tricks for scriptwriting, storyboarding, cinematography and screen acting. You can have a go working behind the camera, or in front of the camera, or both!

 

Shakespearean Performance

There's nothing quite like speaking Shakespeare's delicious dialogue. In this session, you'll unlock the bard's powerful and timeless texts through play and performance. Learn how modern actors approach classical text through vocal and physical technique, analysis of poetry and rhetoric, embodiment of character and emotion, and bringing your own personal spin to a role. You'll get to work on both a monologue and a duologue alongside other fun acting exercises and games, such as practising Shakespearean insults. Come don a crown (or a jester's hat) and grab a sword (or a lute) and play with the best material an actor could ask for!

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Blood on the Clocktower

A demon has been unleashed upon the sleepy town of Ravenswood Bluff, killing by night and taking on human form by day! Led by a devious storyteller, Blood on the Clocktower is a game of murder and mystery, lies and logic, deduction and deception. Each player receives either a ‘good’ or ‘evil’ token with their unique character on it. Good players share information to solve the mystery whilst evil players lie about who they are and what they know. Can good find the demon in time? Or will evil overrun this once peaceful town?

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Debating: Defence Against the Dark Arts

Untruths can often be made to sound reasonable using clever, persuasive language. This is a "know your enemy" course about the dark arts of rhetoric, sophistry and logical fallacies, in which you will create your own deceptions and delusions so that you can better see through the ones you encounter. Because you'd never, ever, want to use a dodgy rhetorical technique to persuade someone, would you - you're far too noble a soul for such sordid things as flattering your audience... 

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The Ethics Committee

In this course, you'll meet some of the more controversial scientific experiments of the past and present. Where new science meets age-old questions of right and wrong, there are tough philosophical questions to be decided. Are there some things science should never do? Is it all right to use science to make people better, but not to make better people? What experiment would you devise to further human knowledge - and will your peers on The Ethics Committee approve?

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The Language Factory (WHOLE DAY COURSE)

An average of nine languages die out every year. We are going to fight back by creating a new language, or perhaps several. You'll stop off at previous attempts to create a new language, such as Esperanto, disassemble some existing languages and then begin the giant task of creating your own. By the end of the day, you should be able to hold some short conversations in your new language(s) and also have plenty of new thoughts about how languages work. This will be a whole day course in order to give us time to really get stuck in to the challenge.

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Whodunnit? Youdoit!

From Agatha Christie to the present day, crime authors have been making a killing from a good murder. Warm up with some one-minute mysteries, and then participate in an in-character murder mystery (involves reading your character's part from a pre-written  script, with the opportunity to ad lib a bit around it). If we have time, you'll devise your own ingenious plots to intrigue, chill and befuddle. Motives, clues, detectives, sidekicks, red herrings - all in the mix for a course of detection, deflection and dénouement.

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The Voice: Speaking with Confidence

Do you have trouble getting your ideas across? Do you worry about how you sound? Do you want people to pay more attention when you speak? Or would you  like to be able to make yourself heard and hold the attention of a larger audience. In this course, you'll learn about the anatomy and mechanics of the voice. Then work through exercises that help give your voice resonance, range and depth, so you can use their voice to get your ideas across effectively. Then you'll set your voice to work on various texts and speech, including, importantly, your own name. This class is great for anyone who wants to hold themselves with confidence in any setting.

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D&D

If you’ve never tried Dungeons & Dragons before, this session is an ideal time to try it out; if you have, you’ve probably signed up already! Join others in a fantasy role-playing micro-adventure to enjoy face-to-face with an expert Dungeon Master (DM). Bring a character you've already created for our online classes or be someone new. If you've not D&Ded before, you'll have a chance to check in with our DM before the session to talk you through the basics so you are ready for the adventure!

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